What are you reading?

hey cameramanic, if you like martin cruz smith, you might check out 'havanna bay' - mystery/who-dun-it.

right now, 'up country' by nelson demille and 'oh pioneer' by wiila cather....and 'a prayer for owen meany' by john irving
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"...patience and shuffle the cards" miguel cervantes
"nothing can be learned" herman hesse
"everybody knows everything" jack kerouac
"some memories are realities and better than anything" willa cather
" doo-wacka doo, wacka doo" roger miller
"we have met the enemy and they is us !" pogo (walt kelly)
 
Collapse by Jarod Diamond. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the interactons between past societies and their environments. His earlier book, Guns, Germs and Steel, is excellent, too.
 
I picked up "Stieglitz on Photography" for cheap at a used store last night. Really good so far...
 
Siverta, Bauhaus by Frank Whitford sounds like a good read, or am I all wet?

Cheers,
Eli
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It's quite interesting. Their ideas about how to learn, art and design between 1919 and 1933 was way ahead of their time. Take a piece of fancy, modern furniture today (from IKEA, perhaps). It was most likely design in the 1920 in Germany by the Bauhaus-group.

Sivert.
 
Just finally got around to reading Crazy Horse by Larry McMurtry today. I've had it in the "to read" pile for way too long and just sat down and devoured it today. It's a small book (8x5 & 145 pages) but then, there isn't a whole lot actually known about his life. But it's the juxtaposition of his life, the society and culture of the plains indian tribes and the society and culture of the european interlopers that is the meat of the volume. Well written without any particular ax to grind & that alone, after too many Ambrose books, is refreashing.

Just wanted to mention it here as this thread seems to show that there may well be an audience for the book.

William
 
zen and the art of motorcycle maintanance is what I'm re-reading right now, but I have to recomend "Why People Photograph" by robert adams, too. lots of good stuff in there.
 
I deal with reading related attention deficit by reading a million different things at once. I read different things in different places and times.

Currently reading:
Seriously, at coffee shops and occasionally on the subway: Kafka Metamorphosis and Other Stories and John Stephan A History of the Russian Far East

Before bed reading: Paul Sullivan: Waking Up in Iceland

Bathroom reading / eating dinner reading (I wash my hands! hahahaha): Zeiss Ikon no Tsubete All about the Zeiss Ikon...a Japanese glossy with interviews and comparisons etc.

Language stuff: A Guide to Remembering the Japanese Characters. Also Daisy Neijmann's Colloquial Icelandic and an online Icelandic course.

Just finished some Russian murder mysteries by Boris Akunin...(Azazel' and Leviafan) I read them in Russian, but with the English translations in hand for if/when I got stuck.

As we used to say when I was a kid: "Reading is fun for mentals!" I am definitely a mental...
 
Kafka Metamorphosis, how is that, I have been meaning to read it ever since I saw a tv show I like do a rock opera about it... Strange, but awesome at the same time.
 
siverta said:
I'm reading Bauhaus by Frank Whitford. I'm not reading this by choice, but I feel I have to when a 10-12 pages paper is due on friday the 25th (my exam in the course Bauhaus - A modernist view on the Gesamtkunstwerk)

When I have finished all my final exams (by the end of december), Magnum Stories by Magnum Photos is next in line.
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Hey, have you read Weimar Culture and From Bauhaus to Our House? Both essentials. IMHO.
 
einolu said:
Kafka Metamorphosis, how is that, I have been meaning to read it ever since I saw a tv show I like do a rock opera about it... Strange, but awesome at the same time.
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Metamorphosis itself is halfway through the book, so I have only just started it. Guy wakes up as a beetle, what's not to like? As for the other stories, I really liked some of the variations in "Meditation", and his account of the airplanes at Bresca was very good. He is interesting, but certainly odd. Sometimes he will just have a brilliant turn of phrase. But in any case, I prefer Nabokov so far (by far too).
 

I read this when it came out a couple years ago but wondered if any you have read it?

"LOST OVER LAOS" by RICHARD PYLE and HORST FAAS.
 
For Work: Service-Oriented Architecture : A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services
by Thomas Erl. Good stuff, it gives a great overview of SOA.

For Fun: Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King. An account of the events that befell the crew of the US ship Commerce after it wreaks off the African coast.

I recommend both.
 
StuartR said:
Metamorphosis itself is halfway through the book, so I have only just started it. Guy wakes up as a beetle, what's not to like? As for the other stories, I really liked some of the variations in "Meditation", and his account of the airplanes at Bresca was very good. He is interesting, but certainly odd. Sometimes he will just have a brilliant turn of phrase. But in any case, I prefer Nabokov so far (by far too).
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Vlad is the best. I think I've read almost everything he published*--including the notes on lectures from his days in the ivy leagues.

* 1. Ada
2. Pale Fire
3. Lolita
4. King, Queen, Knave

You?
 
Poptart, I like Nab's bio too, and especially like Pnin...I like the Russian flavor in the English. My girlfriend forced me to see the old James Mason Lolita recently...WOW! I want to watch it again, more carefully, after I read the book for the first time.

But right now I'm a James Joyce kinda' guy. He's my main man. I've read Ulysses 4 times, if you count the first time when I failed to finish. Taking part in a Joyce reading group twice a month...superb experience, bright people, perceptive talkers. We're finishing Dubliners now...I'm eager for Portrait of the Artist but I'm even more eager to divert to the unfinished flip side, Stephen Hero.
 
einolu said:
what about finnegans wake?
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Oh god

The office I work in has two Joyce fans constantly quoting Finnegans Wake and Ulysses while referencing Marshall McLuhan. Conversations with them are always interesting even if I'm not sure what they talking about :confused:

Presently reading the new Lee Miller biography, just finished a biography of Frank Zappa and Underworld by Don DeLillo.
 
I've been jumping back and forth between Dean Koonz's "Life Expectancy".. (I just finished reading his "Odd Thomas" and thought it was ok).. as well as Martyn Burke's "The Commissar's Report" which is excellent socio/political satire in a novel form.. and finally, just a few minutes ago the UPS guy handed me Gregory Maguire's sequel to "Wicked", which is "Son of a Witch".. so I'll be heavily into that by the end of the weekend
 
The Endurance.

The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's dramatic attempt to cross the Antarctic continent.

Superb story and superb photographs taken by the expedition official photographer.

I already knew the story and saw some documentaries, but having it in a book... Love it.
 
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